Former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, has criticised the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and the Federal Ministry of Education over the technical malfunction that impacted the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) results.
Naija News earlier reported that JAMB’s Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, became emotional during a press briefing on Wednesday, where he publicly apologised for the irregularities and announced that the students affected by the glitch would retake the exam.
Reacting via a post on her 𝕏 handle on Thursday, Ezekwesili questioned the reluctance of the authorities to acknowledge and investigate the anomalies when initial concerns were raised.
She wrote, “Why could the authorities not have immediately acted with humility and done an unbiased and swift system check once unusual trends emerged instead of immediately impugning citizens who expressed concern?
“The Ministry of Education and JAMB were embarrassingly anecdotal in their pejorative non-evidence-based explanation of the significantly unusual results of candidates in the five South East States predominantly.
“Technical matters must always be examined with professionalism and that has sadly disappeared in the toxic atmosphere created by incompetent and dishonest politicians and intellectuals who should know better.”
Ezekwesili’s post included screenshots of two past tweets from 2018 and 2023, allowing followers to assess the continuity in her stance over time.
In one tweet from July 2018, she took a swipe at the Buhari-era Minister of Education, criticising a misplaced focus on JAMB’s revenue instead of tackling core systemic issues.
“If I were President and my Minister of Education concerned herself with the “revenue & remittance” of the Exam body, JAMB, rather than fixing the Integrity & Competence Testing of the Exam System, Process & Infrastructure. I will immediately REASSIGN her to Airport Toll Gate,” the tweet read.
The second screenshot referenced her earlier reaction to the controversy surrounding Anambra student Mmesoma Ejikeme, who was accused in 2023 by JAMB of manually inflating her UTME score.
At the time, she had called for an independent technical inquiry to verify the facts.
Ezekwesili wrote, “This saga between Mmesoma Ejikeme and @JAMBHQ requires an Independent Tech investigation to unearth all facts.
“Listening to her in this video, it is reasonable to request a forensic investigation to help reveal what really happened. I have reached out to the Registrar of JAMB.”
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